1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of genealogy and more particularly to an automated way of visualizing a family using three-dimensional relationships.
2. Description of Related Art
Prior art methods of visualizing a family or family tree have included charts, diagrams, flow charts, and solid representations of family relationships. A family tree is a logical structure that shows the relationships between family members. Generally, children are shown lower in the tree than parents, and siblings are shown at the same level as each other with connections back to parents. Spouses are shown together or at the same level in a tree.
Some prior art methods have attempted to characterize a family tree in two dimensions. However, in two dimensions, it is difficult to establish or understand the way two complete trees join together in each marriage. Also, sometimes spouses die or remarry at a certain level in the tree creating half-siblings and relationships that are almost impossible to visualize in two dimensions. Three dimensions seems to be a better representation space. Snyder in U.S. Pat. No. 4,865,548 teaches a plastic three dimensional representation of a family tree. Here, planes arranged vertically allow pieces resembling chess pieces to represent family members, while strings represent ties between parents and children. However, this method is severely limited since once set up, it is very difficult to change. Also, complications in families such as deaths and remarriages are difficult to represent. Also, because of the finite size of a physical model and limitations on the possible number of planes, it is very difficult to represent large families.
What is badly needed is a system for taking pre-entered data from a genealogical data base such as GEDCOM, or any other database, or hand entered data, reading it into a processor, and then displaying it in a manner chosen according to several of many possible parameters.
The present invention relates to a system and tool for graphically displaying genealogical relationships. The tool can be used for any family since the user can simply read in pre-entered data from an existing genealogical data base. The tool can optionally be configured to enter data in real time. The tool allows presentation of the data in three dimensions and according to various parameters chosen and changed at will by the user.
The family tree in the present invention is composed of a family space and objects that represent persons, and a line or lines, that connect one person object to other person objects. The family space is simply a set containing persons (represented by person objects). Arbitrarily, the X axis (and associated X direction) can be chosen to represent siblings of a chosen family. The Y axis (and associated Y direction) can be chosen to represent generations in the family with the up direction possibly representing parents and the down direction representing children. The Z axis (and associated Z direction) can represent marriages, spouses, biological parent, adoptive parent, or other adult relationships. The choice of designators X, Y, and Z should no way imply the use of a Cartesian coordinate system; any convenient coordinate system is within the scope of the present invention including curvilinear coordinate systems and non-linear coordinate systems. However, the preferred coordinate system for displaying a family space is a Cartesian system. Therefore, X, Y, and Z will be used as designators for the coordinates of any system that is being used. It should be understood that even when a Cartesian coordinate system is used, the X axis does not necessarily have to be horizontal, and could be vertical or any other direction, and the Y axis does not have to be vertical, but could be horizontal or any other direction. Likewise, the Z axis could be any direction.
The person objects can be represented in a display by geometric shapes such as rectangles, triangles or other two dimensional shapes or cubes, spheres or other three dimensional shapes. Lines connecting person objects can represent relationships between the persons. For example, a line in the X direction can represent a sibling relationship; a line in the Y direction can indicate a parent/child relationship; and a line in the Z direction can indicate a marriage, biological parent, or other adult relationship. Children born out of wedlock can also be shown in this representation. The total representation can be moved (translated), zoomed larger or smaller, or rotated along or about any axis by the user to better view relationships.
It should be clearly understood that the word xe2x80x9cmarriagexe2x80x9d used in context with the present invention is much broader than simply civil marriage or a marriage performed by clergy. The term marriage is defined to mean any relationship between two or more people that could procreate, foster, raise, care for, or otherwise parent, produce, or raise children, or any such relationship even where there are no children. This includes, but is not limited to, normal civil marriage, religious marriage, homosexual marriage, living together by people of opposite or same sex, divorced people, separated people, menage a trois, communal raising of children, parenting cooperatives, and any other bonding relation between two or more people. The relationship parents/children is any relation between one or more adults and one or more children, including by not limited to, normal parents, half-parents, adopted full or half parents, foster parents, and any other relationship for raising children.
A particular display of a chosen family space can be set up by choosing a person who is the starting point of the chart. Various types of charts can be selected including ancestral, ancestral/descendent, bloodline, and many other types of family relationships. The user can choose the number of generations before (above) and after (below) he or she wishes to see. The user can also choose the number and type of adult relationships to be displayed. A person object can display information about the person including history, interesting facts, and even photos or representations of faces or entire persons. In addition, a person object can be selected (by marking, selecting, clicking or double clicking in one embodiment of the present invention) to bring up a more comprehensive display of information about that person. The exact shapes of person objects, connection lines, backgrounds, foregrounds, and colors are arbitrary and selectable by the user. Any shapes, types or styles of connection lines, backgrounds, foregrounds, or colors are within the scope of the present invention.
The user can choose the type of symbol or object used to represent a particular person as well as color and texture of relationship lines and objects. The user can choose selected information about a person to display such as birth date. An image of the person can optionally be made to appear on the person object.
The user can choose various options to govern the Z or third axis in relation to children such as a maternal line (religions such as Judaism favor this), paternal (surname lineage), no link to father or mother, or adoptive (to show a child with adoptive parents first, with an alternative relationship to birth parents). The user can make the display cleaner (easier to view) by suppressing any information about an object or only showing minimal information such as name. Real time interaction with the display can be accomplished by using various keyboard keys (in a computer embodiment with a keyboard) to move the chart up or down, toward or away, or to rotate around one of the three axes, or choose one of several predefined view points. A mouse device can be also used to change the angle of the point of view (camera) looking at the chart. A joystick could also optionally be used to control the movement of the chart. A virtual reality glove could be used to control movement through the chart. Any combination of keyboard, hot-key, mouse, joystick, virtual reality glove, or any other control device existing now or invented later, is within the scope of the present invention.
It is also possible with the present invention to allow automatic rotation of the graph at a predetermined or adjustable rate. It is possible to allow the graph to be built automatically person by person with a predetermined or selected delay before each step in the building. This feature helps the user to visualize the family as it evolves in time. This person by person building can be applied to any relationships or any axis.
It is also possible to allow the user to peal off layers and make them disappear from the representation for easier viewing. It is possible to make person objects become transparent so that objects behind them can be viewed.
The invention allows various beneficial results including the ability to see cousins from all or some of a family at the same level, the ability to see how siblings of multiple families compare in size and gender, the ability to compare the number of generations in each pedigree line, and the ability to see the number of adult relationships each sibling or generation have.
The present invention also includes the optional feature of being able to present a slide-show of the development of a certain line in a family space. In addition, this slide-show or time-evolving version can be used as a computer screen saver.